Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	catholic_a	church_n	visible_a	2,933	5	9.1820	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60972	Davvnings of light wherein the true interest of reformation is opened in generall, and in particular, in this kingdome for the establishment of weaker judgements, and many other things impartially hinted, to a further discovery of truth and light in many of our present controversies : with some maximes of reformation / by John Saltmarsh ...	Saltmarsh, John, d. 1647.	1646 (1646)	Wing S477; ESTC R40634	39,746	130

Reformation hath in this age of ours even that visible interest which is undeniable and apparant but yet with this caution that I do not lay these open as affirming any unquestionable necessary successe but as probable und deducible a successe as ever age had because I know there may be withdrawings and retirings in God respectively to a particular State and Church and yet his Church have a fair and eminent interest both there and elswhere in other States and Kingdoms for as a Nation is not dead in the funerals of a few persons nor an house ruined in the falling of a pillar or tyle no more is the Church which is a catholike invisible spirituall body by any particular declination in such a City or State or Nation though I must affirm this That there is a most clear visible powerfull and mighty interest which Reformation hath in the Christian world and this Kingdom at this time and if it succeed not here I can accuse no want of supernaturall naturall or political interest for we are able enough in these but I must accuse some speciall sinnes that have done it which have separ●ted betwixt us and our God and have withheld good things from us and made our God refuse to shew us the pattern and his will for here are conditionals implied If the h●●●se of Israel sh●●● be ashamed of their iniquities I will shew them the form of the ●●●●e and ag●●● If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or no At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdome to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turne from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them Severall secrets in the Interest 1. The Interest in Christ THis Interest is laid up in Christ from all eternity and here we may rise into most spirituall apprehensions concerning it for though God causes the Interest to beam forth into the things below yet it is in Christ like light in the body of the Sun God doth so dispence himself into Christ that there is not any thing of God stowes beside him but all in him and through him All things that the Father hath are mine for Christ as he was the Word was With God in the beginning and was God without him was not any thing made that was made in him was life in these expressions the Spirit lets us see how God made himselfe over to Christ And further He was the image of the invisible God he is before all things and by him all things consist and he is the head of the body the Church who is the beginning being also the b●●ghtnesse of his glory And the Scripture opens this mysterie further yet God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and in him the fulnesse of the Godhead dwels bodily and when Christ that eternal Word came to apply the Interest neerer the creature He grew up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground yet the Lord possessed him in the beginning of his way before his Works of old he Was by him as one brought up with him The holy Spirit holds out the mysterie of laying up the Interest in Christ yet more and writes to the Church to comfort her in the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of ●hrist in whom are hid all the treasures But if we would see a further glimpse of this interest sweetly opened by Christ himselfe let us heighten our meditations upon these Scriptures where Christ discourses with his Father implying the spirituall interest all the way All mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in the● and as thou Father art in me I in thee that they also may be one in us and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them I in them and thou in me that they may be made p●rfect in one So as now God being thus in Christ and the Church adopted so near to that infinite Unity of God in Christ the Interest is unchangeably and eternally preserved and to t●e all fast with the heavenly cordage of love God holds our himself in ●ovena●t in an everl●sting C●venant And thus it hath pleased the Father that in him should all f●lnesse dwell and all our Interest should be treasured in him even to that of grace and glory that our life should be hid with Christ in God II. The Spiritual Interest in Allegory THat we may discern the Interest more nearly it is conveyed to us on the scene of Allegories for God being invisible in himself and more immediate approaches makes himself appeare through such expressions as the●e Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion I sate down under his shadow with great delight The Name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run unto it and are safe under the shadow of his wings will I make my refuge Come my people enter thou into thy chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment Walk about Sion go round about her tell the thereof mark ye well her bulwarks consider her palaces My beloved hath a vineyard c. he fenced it and built a tower in the midst And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place O my Dove thou art in the clifts of the rocks in the secret places of the stairs Thus God hides his interest in these Allegories Clefts in Rocks and secret places and chambers and wings and shadowes and bulwarks and palaces and towers and fences and pavilions and the secrets of his presence for God is so indistant and present with his that they are safe in the midst of dangers and he holds these invisible Sanctuaries over them Lo he goeth by me and I see him not he passeth on also but I per●eive him not Thus said Job when his sight was dim with affliction that he could not see into the Interest beyond the creature III. The Recipients of the Spirituall Interests THose things which are of neerest capacity to the receiving of the Interest are first the Covenant or eternall Paction and ingagement wherby God stands bound of his meer free grace to his Church or people and by this interceding act he and his people are brought together The next is the Scriptures of God or the Word whereby the interest is propagated being the power of God unto salvation The other is the Church of God which is the Fountain sealed the garden enclosed wherein all the sweets fragrancies of grace breath forth IV. The Recipients of the Interest THe Prophetical truths in the Prophets and the Revelation of John are

such corruptions for all their first constitution as appears in that caution to Ephesus Repent or I will c●me unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick and whether the Parables of mixture of Tares and Wheat and good Fish and bad be so as may make for toleration of visible mixtures anywhere then in the world because they are shut up with the mention of the Worlds dissolution And whether such Church censures as ●hrist hath provided against sinnes and scandals import not an outward purity in all such as would pretend to be members of his visible body These things because they are the hinges of certain debutes amongst us would be more fully opened Separation enquired after ANd for Separation I find it not rightly stated for withdrawings and particular communicatings apart of the godly that separate only upon grounds not so clearly or fully condemned in the Word or commended ought not to be presently reputed Schisme or Separation neither by those that so withdraw nor those from whom the pretended separation is made if we would study the common peace of Christians and if this were rightly discussed and the true Scripture principles made clear which bear it there would be no such division as there is separation but it would be only a suspending one from another as in the intervals of uncleannesse under the law till Christ had revealed even this unto them And indeed it would be well enquired seeing God reveales his ●●uths in severall degrees in nations and persons Whether such a national conformity be fully agreeable to such a method of Revelation and that all ought to conform outwardly that conform not inwardly and whether such an unity may not have equally its inconveniences on the right hand as formality hypocrisio c. as well as the other on the left errors divisions c. and yet all State inconveniencies must be taken in here which may spring from the want of such a conformity alwayes provided that the rule in Scripture be fully consulted lest we make Church businesse bend further toward the maximes of State then there is just grounds in the word and it would be well weighed whether such separation hath not foundation enough for more spiritual correspondencie then some on all sides practise and whether such differences in those that pretend all to come out of Babylon ought to be esteemed other than the severall complections and features of so many members of the same body some are more honourable then others And here we might do well to observe better that great engine of Sathans which he useth against the people of God that of severall titles and notes of distinction as of Presbyterial Independent Brownist Anabaptist For by putting us thus under Paul and Apollos or Cephas he drawes us into scandal and offence and sidings and parties amounting almost to the disinteressing and unclasping our selves one from another and letting us out into these severall channels and then our stream must needs slow more weakly against the banks of the common enemy and the power of hell and darknesse I conclude thus that these Scriptures would be further searched Now I beseech you c. that you all speak the same thing c. and that you be perfectly joyned together in the same same mind Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if in any thing you be otherwise minded God shall reveale even this unto you Neverthelesse whereunto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule let us minde the same things We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weake and not to please our selves Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification For one believeth that he may eat all things another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not In these Scriptures are almost the full latitude of Christianity in the first the perfect Rule of unity is commended in the other the severall degrees to this unity are opened and commanded Christ's interests and the Worlds ME thinks in stating severall controversies of late we go not high enough but we strive in the vallies where the mist is thickest whereas we might see better and farther if we could go up higher to the interest of Christ the Disciples saw more of him when he took them up with him then they saw before This interest would be well cleared and held forth in its glory and spirituality and abstracted from all other worldly interests which complicate with it the Kingdom of Christ and the World are two in their fundamentals policy lawes governours ends designes and the more the World insinuates any of its policy into the Kingdom of Christ the more is the Kingdome of Christ darkned and corrupted and as it is in a civill State the more of arbitrarinesse that comes in the more is the established government subverted so in Christs whose government is more one and unchangeable by how much a Kingdome in a spirituall notion is more perfect then a Kingdome in a temporall or worldly And if we observe well we shall see that the great mysterie of iniquity is no more then a meer spirituall arbitrary government The Worldly interests works much in mixed aggregations and counsels authoritative power in servile dependencies and subordinations in promiscu●us unity and conformity and universality in blinde and implicite obedience in falsely pretended antiquity as appears in the popish and Prelaticall p●licy The interest of Christ is in a spirituall freed me or priviledging in ●nction or knowledge in consociations in homogentall unity in directive and supe●intending in perswasive and reprehensive administrations or ordinances and the government of Christ seems to be so framed as neither Tyranny should get in at any consociation nor Anachy or Libertinisme get in at any dissociation or particular gathering and at this beam we may weigh our controversies of this age And they that argue for any complication of interests must look well to the spirituality of the Kingdom and that God in this latter dispensation applies not so to the outward man as he did in the former and that simplicity paucity pers●icuity humility ●enity and visible sanctity are the proper orbs where the evangelicall light moves And yet here I would be rightly understood for I make but overtures for enquiry while things are making to their constitution amongst us which if once constituted all ought to be either actively or passively obedient The Disputes for liberty improved THere are great disputings now for Libert● and this springs from a mutuall jealousie in each party the one fearing the others establishment will endure no other interest near its own and the more prevalent fearing the insinuations encroachments of a tolerated interest that is diverse from it Now we should enquire here whether these jealousies be the more proper passions of